What is a cline?
The British Council Teaching English website defines a cline as ‘a scale of language items that goes from one extreme to another, for example, from positive to negative, or from weak to strong’.

Why are clines useful in language teaching?
Clines can be very effective in conveying and clarifying language, giving a very visual representation of meaning. They highlight shades of meaning, they are efficient and can cut down on teacher talking time. They also provide students with a good record of language to take home.

What language points lend themselves well to use of clines?
Clines are very versatile and can be used for vocabulary or grammar.
Some examples I have used follow:

Vocabulary

Temperature

Expressing likes and dislikes

Feelings
E.g. Degrees of hunger

This could work equally well with other feelings such as anger, happiness, tiredness, or even drunkenness!

Grammar

Modals of deduction

Adverbs of frequency

It can be a nice idea to write the sentences or expressions onto cards and get the students to come up to the board and stick them where they think they go on the cline. If you are technologically minded and have access to an IWB, you could also get them to drag the expressions to the appropriate position. This exercise promotes peer collaboration and usually some interesting discussion.

Thanks for the comment Mo. I agree, you could add many more verbs such as ‘dislike’, ‘detest’, ‘loathe’, ‘am crazy about’ etc. This would of course depend on level, board space, and how complex you want it to become. I’m not so sure about ‘dislike’ though; it feels like rather unnatural usage in this context, in my mind anyway.

Where I live in the US, our local paint stores have paint color samples printed on rectangular strips of heavy paper. Visualizing the clines by writing the words in order, each word on a separate color sample, already printed in light to dark order on the sample sheet, works perfectly. And the stores don’t mind you taking a batch of these color samples for free!

Hi Ven,
I haven’t added ‘would have been’ to the cline as it doesn’t express a degree of certainty.
Whilst ‘would have been’ has the same form as these past modals of deduction, the meaning is very different; it expresses a hypothetical sitaution in the past, not certainty.

That’s great! Thank you for sharing. =D
I’d suggest changing the certainty cline, however. When I say “It wasn’t the postman”, I’m not 0% certain. Just the opposite, I’m 100%. When it comes to the difference between “It was”, “It must have been” and “It might have been, ok, it’s the certainty that varies, exactly like you put it. But when I say “It was” or “It wasn’t”, I’m just as certain.

Thanks for your comment Natália. I agree.
‘It wasn’t the postman’ isn’t 0% certainty but 100% certainty as you say.
I’ve never known how to visualise this on the cline however, and usually just explain this to the students. Any ideas anyone?

=) You can keep the cline exactly like it is and only show affirmative sentences. Then you can add the negative versions on another parallel cline or on the same cline to the left/right.

So

It was the postman – 100% – It wasn’t the postman
It must have been the postman – 90% – It can’t have been the postman.
It may have been the postman – 60% – It may not have been the postman.
It might have been the postman – 50% – It might not have been the postman.

[Of course the percentages are just a rough guide. I can’t draw a cline here. 😉 ]

That has the added advantage of making it crystal clear that the negative of “must” is not “mustn’t” in such cases.

Thanks for your post, it helped me a lot. Because I’m just a student who always follows to what method suitable to me. And I wonder if you could give me some hint of how to gather the words in group (describe the same meaning with difference of certainty or shades).

Hi Jonny,
Just to let you know that we’ve shortlisted this blog post for this month’s TeachingEnglish blog award and I’ll be making a post about it on today’s TeachingEnglish Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/TeachingEnglish.BritishCouncil, if you’d like to check there for likes and comments.

Great! I like using clines for degrees as you say, though I tend to tell my students it is specific and more general. If something is small I could be talking about the size of my car, the size of city, or the size of a cat. If I say something is microscopic…I have a much more specific idea of what I am talking about! http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2014/03/get-students-using-different-words.html

I’m going to add this to the English Teacher’s workshop program used here in S. Korea. (properly attributed, of course). You truly have created a lovely visual to help my Korean teachers of English expand both their ability to use English conversationally and convey meaning to their students. Many thanks!

Very nice, I will definately use this in class. One question, though… “I’m a bit peckish”. Is there a replacement for this? I try not to teach expressions that are exclusively brittish to my intermediate students.